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In your briefing today:

• Allegations of spying within the SNP group have rocked Holyrood

• European leaders have struck a deal to loan Ukraine £79 billion

• Aberdeen concluded their disappointing European campaign with another defeat

📣 A spying scandal is erupting in Holyrood, with claims that a number of SNP MSPs - apparently all women - had their offices bugged by staffers attempting to gain information which they could use to “backstab their bosses”.

It started with revelations, broken by The Scotsman online yesterday, that an SNP MPS’s office was “bugged” by her own staff member.

The staffer - not named in their coverage - is still involved with the SNP, and has not faced any sanctions for his actions. The Scotsman also chose not to name the MSP involved, although the strong hint is it’s a woman: a source is quoted saying the staffer’s actions were “inexplicable” but the lack of sanctions reflected a “woman problem” within the party. (The Scotsman has the exclusive)

Meanwhile, the Scottish Sun alleges this morning that “at least three female SNP MPSs” were bugged by male aides “in a scandal hushed up by party bosses”. They say one woman involved is a former minister, and that all the women involved had endured “traumatic” ordeals. (The Sun has the exclusive)

📣 European leaders have struck an overnight deal to loan Ukraine £79 billion after they failed to agree on a plan to use frozen Russian assets.

The sticking point on using the Russian money had been Belgium, where most of the funds are held. The country had, for weeks, sought guarantees on support should it be targeted by Russian retaliation, but negotiations had bogged down.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the money “truly strengthens out resilience”. Writing on X, he said: “Together, we are defending the future of our continent”. (BBC)

• Hungary agrees to allow EU loan but will not contribute (Guardian)

• Funding is secured, but not in the way most of the EU wanted (Politico)

📣 Planning to travel today? Remember to pack some patience: you’re joining the biggest Christmas getaway on record, according to motoring and travel organisations.

While Christmas-specific travel is likely to hit peaks tomorrow (Saturday) and on Christmas Eve, today’s mix of commuter travel, shopping trips and early getaways will make it the busiest single day. The AA expects more than 24 million cars to hit the roads. (Guardian)

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AROUND SCOTLAND

📣 Health officials have warned Scotland may not be over the worst of the winter flu outbreak, despite “reassuring declines” in the number of confirmed cases. (Scotsman)

📣 A murder investigation has been launched after a new dad was shot and killed at his home in Motherwell, in what is thought to have been a “targeted attack”. (Daily Record)

📣 Scottish Water plans to hike its bills by 42% over the next six years, claiming it is necessary to pay for upgrades to Victorian-era infrastructure. (The Times £)

📣 A photograph capturing Scott McTominay’s iconic goal for Scotland against Denmark has been hung in the Scottish National Portrait Gallery. (Scotsman)

AROUND THE UK & WORLD

📣 Another tranche of photographs from the estate of Jeffrey Epstein has been released, including several images of quotes from Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita written on a woman’s body.

Other images show Epstein in the company of other well-known figures including author Noam Chomsky, Microsoft’s Bill Gates and Google co-founder Sergey Brin. (Independent)

📣 The suspect in last week’s mass shooting at Brown University has been found dead in New Hampshire after a six-day manhunt. Claudio Neves Valente, 48, studied at the Rhode Island university 25 years ago. (BBC)

📣 The £100 limit on contactless transactions will be lifted from March next year (BBC)

📣 What the UK interest rate cut means for you: good news for homebuyers and remortgagers, but bad news for savers. (Guardian)

SPORT

⚽️ Aberdeen wrapped up their UEFA Conference League campaign with a 3-0 defeat away to Sparta Prague, condemning them to a winless campaign - although they will reflect on a draw that saw them meet five of the eight sides in the competition. (BBC)

• Five talking points from the game (Daily Record)

• 🎥 Highlights (TNT Sports)

⚽️ Celtic’s Wilfried Nancy has been backed by his former boss Thierry Henry. Henry - who received the lifetime achievement award at the BBC Sports Personality of the Year awards last night - urged the club to “let him cook” and judge the new manager at the end of the season. (BBC)

IDEAS
From the magazines: A good year for China | A bad year for “tragic matador” Starmer | We are Putin’s next target | How to survive Christmas, Economist-style

🗣️ In its end of year edition, The Economist notes China had a good year. Donald Trump might have tried to rewrite the rules of trade on “Liberation Day” with a welter of tariff announcements. But China defied Trump and, “By turning the tables, Mr Xi revealed just how much America actually depends on his policies.

“In this round of the superpowers’ fight for 21st-century supremacy, it was a victory for China,” the newspaper notes in a leader.

How did it win? The world is increasingly dependent on China - where, once, Western firms invested there to take advantage of cheap producers and a huge market, today they build laboratories there to tap its intellectual power. It remains an industrial powerhouse - a third of manufacturing takes places there - and dominates green tech, producing up to 80% of solar panels, turbines and the like.

The country has its problems but, says the Economist, so does the US under Trump. “If America is just one more ethno-nationalist project like Russia or China it will squander its greatest advantage,” it says. (The Economist £)

🗣️ The New Statesman’s editor, Tom McTague, writes an elegant piece on “Keir Starmer, the tragic matador”, contesting that “British politics is a test of individuals’ instincts more than a contest between ideologies,” and that Starmer’s instincts have been found wanting.

McTague quotes Hemingway’s “The Capital of the World” describing three matadors all destined to fail because of their human weaknesses. “One who was ill and trying to conceal it; one who had passed his short vogue as a novelty; and the third… a coward.”

McTague writes: “The three matadors have served as archetypes of so many of the politicians I have watched over the years: men and women of seriousness and intelligence who cannot overcome the limitations of their characters. In one sense, there’s an element of each of Hemingway’s three matadors in Keir Starmer himself.

“What is striking about politics is the raw, overwhelming importance of instinct,” he continues. “It was Henry Kissinger, ironically, who once observed that leadership is less a question of capability than character – that great, hard-to-define quality combining elements of instinct and moral strength. ‘You can always hire intelligent people,’ he once put it. ‘But you cannot hire character.’” (The New Statesman £)

🗣️Another warning about the prospect of war with Russia comes from a perhaps unlikely source - Paul Mason, in The New World, in a piece headlined: “We are Putin’s next target”.

He quotes some of the military leaders mentioned in previous editions of The Early Line - the head of the Royal Navy warning that our supremicy in the north Atlantic is at risk, or the French army chief’s chilling warning that “If our country wavers because it is not ready to lose its children… or to suffer economically because the priority has to be military production, then we are indeed at risk.”

“We’re not just up against complacency,” writes Mason. “We’re facing a type of person I call the ‘useful idiot savant’ – people who parrot bland pacifist catchphrases, or ‘anti-imperialist’ phraseology, in full knowledge that the threat is real.”

“Unfortunately, after years of peace, and with a fragmented national culture, the UK’s will to fight is uncertain.”

Mason says we must first accept the threat is real, bearing in mind that Russia could win without any direct military aggression at all. “The lights could go off, the internet could go dark and the supermarket shelves could empty without a shot being fired,” he notes. (The New World £)

🗣️ The Economist offers some advice for surviving Christmas. Their first tip is to “try to be young”, as young people can - frankly - deal with Christmas, and especially alcohol, more efficiently. If you’re not young, having started some strength training several months ago in preparation would have been a good idea.

And, failing that, try to choose your tipple wisely: clear drinks, such as gin or vodka, avoid the “congeners that accompany ethanol in darker spirits” which can make your hangover so much worse. And, more broadly, eat and drink in moderation, and socialise away - because being convivial is healthier than being lonely. (The Economist £)

👍 That’s your Early Line for the day

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